Owlbear Matriarch

Large monstrosity, unaligned · CR 7

by Fernrook

Owlbear Matriarch
Armor Class
14
natural armor
Hit Points
133
14d10 + 56
Speed
40 ft., climb 30 ft.
  • STR +5
  • DEX +1
  • CON +4
  • INT -4
  • WIS +2
  • CHA -2
Saving Throws
Str +8, Con +7
Skills
Athletics +8, Perception +5, Survival +5
Condition Immunities
Frightened
Senses
darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 15
Challenge 7 2,900 XP

Traits

  • Keen Sight and Smell. The matriarch has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight or smell.
  • Brood Guardian. While a creature the matriarch can see is within 10 feet of her nest, she has advantage on attack rolls against it, and any critical hit she scores against it also knocks it prone.
  • Unstoppable Bulk. The matriarch can move through the space of any Medium or smaller creature. The first time she enters a creature’s space on a turn, that creature must succeed on a DC 16 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.

Actions

  • Multiattack. The matriarch makes one Beak attack and two Claw attacks. While she has 66 hit points or fewer, she makes one additional Claw attack.
  • Beak. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (2d10 + 5) piercing damage. The matriarch targets the creature she has most recently been damaged by, if she can reach it.
  • Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) slashing damage.
  • Deafening Screech (Recharge 5-6). The matriarch throws back her head and screams. Each creature in the area must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw, taking 10 (3d6) thunder damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. On a failed save, a creature is also deafened for 1 minute. Every creature within 30 feet of her must make the saving throw.

Bonus Actions

  • Snatch. The matriarch grabs a Medium or smaller creature she has hit with a Claw attack this turn. The target is grappled (escape DC 16) and the matriarch carries it with her when she moves.

Reactions

  • Cover the Nest. Trigger: A creature the matriarch can see attacks one of her cubs. The matriarch throws herself over the cub. The attack targets her instead, and she has resistance to the damage of that attack.

Origin Story

An owlbear matriarch is what an ordinary owlbear becomes if it survives long enough to raise three broods. Rangers who work the deep conifer forests will tell you the difference is not size, though she is half again the bulk of a common owlbear — it is that she has learned. She remembers which hunters carry crossbows. She remembers the shape of a snare. She has buried cubs, and she has worked out that the two-legged things come back in the spring, and so she moves her nest every spring and leaves the old one baited with carrion to see who comes sniffing. Druids of the northern circles regard her as a keystone predator and will not permit her to be hunted; everyone else regards her as the reason that stretch of the map is blank.

Habitat and Ecosystem

Matriarchs den in old-growth conifer forest, always within a half day of running water and always on a slope, so that anything approaching the nest has to climb. The nest itself is a scraped bowl of moss, shed feathers and cracked long-bones, roofed by deadfall she has dragged into place herself. She holds a territory of roughly nine square miles and tolerates no other apex predator in it — dire wolves and brown bears simply leave. Elk and boar are her staple; she caches what she cannot finish under wet moss and returns to it for days. Where a matriarch has established herself, the undergrowth is noticeably thicker and the deer noticeably fewer, and foresters learn to read the difference from a mile off.

Behavior Patterns

A matriarch does not charge on sight, which is what makes her far more dangerous than the owlbear in the monster manual. She watches. She will shadow a party for the better part of a day, keeping to the slope above them, and she attacks at the moment they split up — at a river crossing, at a latrine trip, at the changing of a watch. She opens with Deafening Screech to scatter and stun, then takes the isolated one and leaves. She does not fight to the death over prey and will abandon a kill the instant a fight turns costly, because there will be other elk. The one thing that overrides all of this is the nest. Within sight of her cubs she will not retreat, will not be frightened, and will not stop.

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